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This is what I meant by "agenda... set by the users". Messy and full of utter rubbish as the forums were (and, to be honest, still are - there are at least the same number of irritating and outright hostile threads I think, just fewer interesting ones I'm afraid) anyone could start a thread about whatever they thought was important. There's no requirement on LL to pay attention to, or even read, threads, but at least if some issue kept bobbing to the top, it might be a hint to any Linden browsing that it was a topic that people were concerned about.

Blogs, much as I am very keen on them, are only two-way communication if people read each others'. The agenda is set by the author. It is a mistake to see a single blog as ever a possible competitor for group communication to a forum - what is a competitor is a *community* of blogs, and whilst there have been many technical improvements to make this easier, it's still not the primary goal of the software, which is self-expression rather than general discussion.

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Seeing as how I doubt whether there will ever be open forums in the near future in the same way as we've seen before - and to be frank I think we as a community didn't really help ourselves there, with some of the ridiculously manic and repetitive internet screaming that's gone on recently, threads posted again and again consisting of self-righteous personal abuse are bound to alienate anyone - I think that anyone who is interested in maintaining a forum for general commentary needs to take the initiative, subscribe to other people's blogs with something like Bloglines, start their own blogs and write not only entries with their own material but links to and commentary on other people's material with which they agree.

It's not that much harder to read a Bloglines page than to skim the forums. It's not as good, because forums are designed specifically for group chat on a topic, and feed aggregators aren't, but... what else are you going to do? There are of course third-party forums as well, but those really have to be part of a broader strategy; not everyone likes or uses them.

Well said Ordinal.
Blogs are far from evil.. they just are not what we expect for communication to LL.

My intention is to read the blog. I had bagun to see it is a good way to relay info from various Lindens to us. They are a great cetral point for Lindens to talk to us about plans.

I will not be able to post comments on them as it is now because I am not comfortable with the WordPress sign up etc. I was beginning to comment on the blog as it was which is something I never expected to take part in. So now when I have a question about something that is on the blog I am going straight to Linden Answers with it. I will post the link for thier convenience and my question there.

That is not a protest, it is just the best way for me to ask until Robin and Torley and whoever else figures out how to break down the walls stopping me right now.

great, now if it was open source... why don't I code onboard avionics for boeing 737's while I am half drunk and try to sell it to boeing also, because it surely must be better even though I haven't seen their code!

lol

Yes and German Shepherds are not dogs, otherwise they would be called dogs not German Shepherds.

Some might be so narcissistic and enamored with their own thoughts that they clutter the communication channels with trivial contrarianism. Perhaps this is why we are now faced with a blog rather than a forum. Sometimes those who would paint themselves the heroes are the ones partly responsible for the emergencies in the first place. Hmmm . . . *scratches chin* I wonder . . .

I care about Second Life. I work here and have strong relationships here as well. The changes in the forums do not really affect my Second Life. I trust Philip Linden's wisdom over Forum Blowhard's. The peripheral web community of Second Life will continue to evolve and decentralization is where it must go anyway. So Linden Lab pulls us away from the teat of a corporate owned forum and sets up a corporate blog to control their flow of info. There will be a little bit of crying at first and then the privately owned web property run by residents will have to mature into adulthood. Im not a fanboy, but Im also not so conceited that I think I can always point out how Linden Lab is getting it wrong. I think they are handling this in a much more nurturing way than the grandstanding here implies.

This thread should be the final sniffles before we wipe our eyes and start building the web around Second Life like we build the world inside it. Im not worried. I for one welcome our new weblog overlords.

Why must it?

I believe we need to be bringing together the community as a whole, not further fragmenting it.

I'd love to hear your reasoning behind your statement above.

Lewis

*things that make you go hmm*

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seems like every tims some people starts talking about how bad these are the quicky get banned etc........Good CS and CR ANS PR always puts the users first...... QA is always the best way to learn what is wrong with things. Not banning them for talking and explaining whats wrong.......

Sounds like a plan to me!!

Just an FYI


this just in from the Linden Blog.....

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Many Residents have been having problems getting registered to comment on our blog. It ended up causing more difficulties than benefits — including concerns of name-swipers — so to such ends, I personally apologize for the sucky trouble — required registrations for commenting are again turned off.

No doubt great feedback will follow my post here.

(In the future, like has already pointed out, it’d be far better to connect your SL account to this blog automatically, as is currently done in the forums.)


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And I shall start the ball rolling. Kudos for Robin and Co. for getting this fixed up in a pretty fast fashion. Much appreciated.

You are absolutely, completely, totally and utterly WRONG.

My two yen worth of why the forums closed is. Too many people played knowiAll and the ego always got inthe way. Hence Nothing or nobody relaly recived the helped they needed etc. There was always fake trolling charges flaming because otehrs wanted to attection etc......It was a mess and finally it was retired because LLabs realized that control was useless.....I was so sad when i had helpers say what i said had no reallly value for the helping of others. Yet they are always junkingup and or insulting others on the forums. It was not worth the effort or time for LLabs.........If anymore has worked as a leader of a group ( 20 or 30 people or) I have done this............... you need to understand that having top people fighting withthe users is not the way to run a user base of people....

I agree whole heartidly. Bickering between the people who know what they're talking about, the people who think they know what they're talking about (but don't), and the people who just want to fight is probably the reason the general forum disappeared, and probably why the forum itself is being phased out. You can't really bicker like that on a blog.

But that doesn't stop people from trying, and really it's better to let them do it on the forums than to allow them to railroad a valid conversation on a blog.

I can say good riddens! Its caused more problems then what they are worth.........Blogs well as long as the info is timely and informative i have no problems.